Chapter 7 - THE UNEXPECTED ALLYThe heavy steel door swung open slowly, creaking on its reinforced hinges.
A tall silhouette filled the doorway, illuminated by the dim amber emergency lights of the outer hallway. A thick plume of white smoke drifted past his shoulders, smelling of cordite and burned timber.
It wasn't one of Moretti’s mercenaries.
It was Dante.
His immaculate suit jacket was torn at the shoulder, a dark stain of blood soaking through his crisp white shirt, but his grip on his heavy automatic pistol remained ice-cold and steady.
"They’ve taken the upper conservatory and locked down the main staircase," Dante said, his voice clipped and breathless as he stepped inside and slammed the heavy door shut, engaging the manual deadbolts. "Moretti sent a small army. Karen Mitchell gave them the security blueprints."
"Where is Mr. Valente?" I demanded, stepping protectively in front of Clara, who was curled on the floor gasping for air.
"The boss is holding the master suite stairwell," Dante replied, his dark eyes flashing with grim determination. "He bought us five minutes. But Moretti’s men are using thermal imaging scanners. They’ll find this bunker within ten minutes."
Dante looked down at Clara, his hard expression softening just a fraction. He knelt beside her, quickly unzipping a tactical medical pouch strapped to his thigh.
"She’s in acute heart failure," Dante stated clinically, pulling out a sealed syringe and an oxygen mask. "I was a combat medic before I worked for the Valente family. Hold her shoulders steady, Elena."
"What are you doing?!" I cried out.
"Saving her life, the same way you saved the boss's daughter," Dante muttered, expertly injecting a stabilizing cardiac stimulant into Clara’s arm and strapping the portable oxygen mask over her face. Within seconds, Clara’s ragged breathing began to slow, her eyelids fluttering as the color slowly returned to her cheeks.
Dante stood up, wiping a streak of sweat and soot from his forehead, and looked straight into my eyes.
"Moretti didn't just come here to kill Adrian Valente," Dante said quietly, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "He came here to recover something that was hidden inside the baby’s nursery three weeks ago. Something Karen Mitchell helped him smuggle into the house."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, my mind racing.
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"A ledger," Dante said grimly. "A digital drive containing proof that Moretti has been laundering cartel money through the Valente shipping ports for five years—with the help of a mole inside Adrian’s own inner circle. And based on our internal logs... that mole was the person who paid your sister to plant the decoy bag."
Before Dante could finish his sentence, a massive, thunderous explosion rocked the entire subterranean level, blowing the outer security door completely off its hinges in a blinding flash of smoke, fire, and twisted metal.
